This, I have to say, is pretty cool. $2.40 for the blank DVD-R (Shintaro 4x) and it will hold a whole season of an anime series. (Or 9 episodes of Buffy.) I could have done this on my CD writer, but it would have required 7 times as many disks, so 7 times as much effort. Burning (counts on fingers) 126 CDs - probably more, in fact, because I'd only get one episode of Buffy to a CD - isn't all that attractive. In fact, I don't think I've burnt 126 CDs since I bought the writer. Writers. Um, there's four in the three main PCs, one for the notebook, one in the G4 Mac. I think the SGI has a CD writer too.

But DVDs are in the sweet spot, at least for now; they hold enough that it's not painful to do backups; both the drives and the disks are reasonably priced (and getting cheaper fast).

Sony (and others) are working to obsoletify the DVD as quickly as they can, and I salute them for their efforts. Who the heck wants to have to change disks in the middle of Fellowship of the Ring? And that's not even HD - which will naturally require higher bit rates.

But right now, DVDs it is, and I'm happy. Except that they are crappy little things with pathetic cover art. I'm sure some of you are old enough to remember LPs -y'know, vinyl - and how with 144 square inches to work with the artists could produce something that actually stood out. I have a whole bunch of laserdisks, too, and particularly the ones from Japan have some wonderful artwork.

Bring 'em back, I say. A 12" double-sided Blu-Ray disk would hold something like... carry the twelve... 300GB of data on a single layer. All of Buffy on one disk. Woot! And I'd actually be able to find the damn thing.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:53 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Fouille. Aha! Matrices! UM, j'ai déjà environ 200 matrices; ils vivent dans un vase sur ma table de café. Je ne suis pas sûr pourquoi j'ai pensé qu'I a eu besoin des autres (compte) 28. Ils sont jolis, cependant.

J'allais signaler une information d'avertissement et suivante reçue d'une source secrète * que le poison d'une grenouille D'or-Jaune de dard de poison pourrait tuer jusqu'à 1500 personnes, et que vous devriez tous envoyer m'à de grands montants d'argent pour m'aider à éviter cette menace en achetant un bon nombre d'ordinateurs parce que nous tous savons cela qui produit des ordinateurs crée l'anhydride carbonique, qui est très mauvais pour les usines du ** de jungle d'Amazon où la grenouille D'or-Jaune de dard de poison a sa tanière. Ainsi si vous me donnez assez d'argent, je puis acheter assez d'ordinateurs pour les essuyer dehors entièrement! Et même si je puis seulement acheter un ordinateur, ce pourrait être assez pour tuer au moins une grenouille, et économiser les 1500 vies humaines.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:19 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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The other highlight of this week's showcase is the entry of the League of Losers Liberals into the sponsorship contest. No, let's call them what they are: Losers. The second post I mention, at Demosophia, about the dangers facing liberal democracy, that would be dear to the heart of all liberals, right? It would attract liberal votes the way a dead pygmy shrew attracts flies, right? (Please don't ask me how my Shrew Ranch is coming along. I just don't want to talk about it.)

But no, the LOSERS all vote for a pile up on Halliburton.

We don't need to lift a finger to marginalise these wankers. They've done it all by themselves, unable to see past their incoherent hatred for President George W. Bush.

PRESIDENT! GEORGE! W! BUSH! Hahahahahahaha!

Anyway, over at Munuviana, Susie calls on all Munuvians to vote. It's not just Munuvians who should vote, of course; all members of the Axis of Naughty, all the almost-but-not-quite-right-thinking people in The Alliance of Cheap Free Blogs, indeed, everyone who has a blog and is not a pathetic wanker, should get on the Ecosystem and show those "liberals" what the word used to mean.

Do it, because you know that if you don't, one day you will wake up to find that the frogs have taken over, and you won't be able to get a decent doughnut anywhere.

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The new volume of Chobits was number 4.

The existing volumes were number 1 (which I have watched) and number 2 (which I will watch, one day).

Those who have taken the advanced course will see the problem here.*

Well. I counted them twice, looked around in case it had crawled off to be with another genre. No dice.** So I headed off to the spare bedroom.

When I'm really busy, but not really really busy, I will go shopping, and then bring the goodies home (whatever they might be) and drop the bags in the spare room. If there's something I want to read or watch or listen to or install right away, I take that one thing, and leave the rest for later. Right now, there's about six months worth of goodies bagged and waiting in that room. Surely Chobits volume 3 was among them?

Well, lets see. Figurines from Love Hina, Oh My Goddess, and Dirty Pair. Not quite what I'm after. The Complete SF Novels of Fredric Brown. I really need to find time to read that, but not what I want right now. Two issues of NewType. Getting warm!

A bag full of Anime DVDs! Paydirt! Two box sets of You're Under Arrest; Inu Yasha, Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar***, Noir... No Cho. No Bits. Rats. Well, not actual rats.

Dig. Six Weird Al Yankovic CDs. Oh, yeah, forgot about those. A 120GB hard disk. Another issue of NewType. Scientific American. Aha! More DVDs.

But no Chobits.

Dig. Aha! Dice! Um, I already have about 200 dice; they live in a vase on my coffee table. I'm not sure why I thought I needed another (count) 28. They are pretty, though.

Rise of Nations. The latest Sims expansion pack.

And there, in a bag, all alone, Chobits 3.

Oh, and if you happen to see a guy in a full suit of armour wandering around, looking lost, I seem to have this grail-looking thingy too.

* "One, two, five!"
   "Three, sir!"
   "Three!"
** Well, actually...
*** Fear the power of the cute side!

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I just realised that I am absolutely starving. I've been trying to cut back on the meals a bit, lately, and this is what happens. 'Scuse me while I go pig out.

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King's Comics had the Azumanga Daioh manga - yay! I'm a huge fan of this wonderful show, but as far as I know the anime is currently not available. The fansub has been pulled from distribution now that the series has been licensed, but it hasn't actually been released yet.

Not that I care, because I already have it. Ha ha!

Then I took my few remaining dollars to Galaxy Bookshop (Sydney's best Science Fiction and Fantasy book store) where I found Lois McMaster Bujold's new book, Paladin of Souls. This is the sequel to her fabulous Curse of Chalion, which was nominated for the 2002 Hugo Award for Best Novel.* (The winner was Neil Gaiman's American Gods, which I didn't like at all.)

Oh, and Jack Williamson's Darker Than You Think and Lawrence Watt-Evans' Something-or-Other. Sorry, LWE, I just buy your books, I don't notice the titles so much...

But it's Paladin of Souls that's going to keep me away from the blogs for a couple of days. Try not to break anything, peoples, and beware of frogs. They're up to no good!

* Bujold did win the Hugo for Best Novel in 1991 for The Vor Game, and again in 1995 for Mirror Dance.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:17 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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No, really.

I was going to post a warning, following information received from a covert source* that the poison from one Golden-Yellow Poison Dart frog could kill up to 1500 people, and that you should all send me large amounts of money to help me avert this menace by buying lots of computers because we all know that producing computers creates carbon dioxide, which is very bad for the plants of the Amazon Jungle** where the Golden-Yellow Poison Dart frog has its lair. So if you give me enough money, I can buy enough computers to wipe them out entirely! And even if I can only buy one computer, that might be enough to kill at least one frog, and save 1500 human lives.

You know it makes sense.

And the next thing I know, the gigabit line through wcg.net to Mu.Nu Global Headquarters goes down. No explanation, no warning, just the faint sound of ribbit from the conduit. Fortunately, gblx.net (who provide another of our gigabit lines) recently improved their frogproofing, so it was still possible to get at the goodies if you were coming from the right side of the net.

Anyway, I'm never one to back down in the face of danger, real or imagined, so here's the warning:

One Golden-Yellow Dart frog's poison can kill 1500 people.

This menace must be stopped before they kill again.

Please give generously to the World Anti-Wildlife Fund (WAWF) care of this blog.

Thank you.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:15 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Just curious, since I have more experience with 35-hour days than with 35-hour weeks.

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